1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a method and system of improving a data processing system and in particular to a method and system for efficiently managing the transformation of document types within a data processing system. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and system for permitting the efficient transformation of a document from a first document type to a second document type by means of a reference to a stored indication of previous transformations.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the modern electronic office environment there exist many scenarios in which a data object or document needs to be transformed from one type of data object to a second type of data object in order to be comprehensible to a selected user. Such situations often occur when a document is being distributed from one enterprise to a second enterprise within a distributed data processing system. In such situations the need may exist to transform the document from a first document type to a second document type which is recognizable by the receiving enterprise. As is often the case during such transformations, selected information such as characters, graphics or images cannot be accurately represented within the transformed document. In such cases this information is generally lost.
In transformations of the type described herein, the object type which must be transformed is generally referred to as the "source" object and the resultant document type which exists after a transformation is referred to as the "target" object.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that many such transformation applications exist which are capable of transforming a document from one type to another. For example, numerous software applications are currently marketed which are capable of transforming a document which has been stored in a format associated with a particular word processing application to a format which is accessible and comprehensible to a second type of word processing application.
One existing method of identifying that a document has been transformed is the method which is utilized in conjunction with the Document Interchange Architecture (DIA) of International Business Machines Corporation. When the document type in the Base Subprofile for a particular document differs from the document type listed within the Document Unit Introducer, for that document, a user may assume that a document transform has occurred.
Unfortunately, this method assumes that the Document Unit Introducer will always be present with the document itself. Furthermore, this method only identifies the fact that a transformation of the document has occurred. There is no method utilizing this technique whereby the existence of intermediate transformations of that document may be identified.
Therefore, it should be obvious that a method is needed which may be utilized to identify a sequence of multiple transformations which have occurred with regard to a document so that an entire series of transformations may be reversed or partially reversed to restore a document to any intermediate document type or the original document type.